Apartment building in Bristol condemned after 'hazardous situation'

A multi-family home in Bristol was condemned Thursday evening after a Connecticut Light and Power employee discovered water from all the recent rain was streaming onto an electrical panel down inside the basement.

The CL&P employee was at the home at 22 High St. investigating a power outage around 5 p.m. when he discovered a steady stream of water.

Four families in the home were immediately evacuated after learning the recent rain was creating a hazardous situation inside.

"Everybody had to leave," said Maria Santiago, a tenant of the building. "Thirty-seven people had to leave, we had 10 minutes to find someone to spend the night with, basically 15 minutes to get out of here."

The Bristol building inspector was called in to investigate and ordered the building condemned.

"The big concern was that electricity and water don't mix, could have been a fire," said Corey Kosinski of Meriden Property Management LLC.

Eyewitness News was told the issue was that the building has a flat roof and the drains could not handle the amount of water from the heavy rain on Thursday.

The water began to back up and eventually streamed into the electrical panel.

According to city records, the building is owned by a limited liability corporation out of Texas.

Meriden Property Management LLC. takes care of the property. It's putting the 37 tenants up at a motel, while working on getting them back into their apartments as quickly as possible.

"We have our roofer, we're going to start with the roof down. Go in there and make sure everything is OK with the drains," Kosinski said. "We have our electrician, he's going to come. We've got another company that's going to come and dry everything out."

Tenants like Juana Matos said if it's fixed she'll return. For now, she and others are just waiting, trying to figure out what to do next.

"We don't know what we going to do, how long it's going to take," Matos said.

Eyewitness News wasn't able to reach the building's owners down in Texas.

As for when the tenants will be able to get back, the management company is hoping to have everything fixed and clean by early next week.